Zarif: Security in the Persian Gulf is either for all or none
A month after the attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic published an article in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai, saying either all the countries around the Persian gulf will enjoy security or “all will be denied of it.”
In his article published on Thursday, October 10, he also urged the countries of the region to pay attention to President Rouhani’s “Hormuz Peace” plan.
Rouhani first mentioned the Hormuz Peace plan eight days after the Aramco attacks. The attacks temporarily reduced Saudi Arabia’s oil production by almost half. US, Saudi Arabia, France, Britain, and Germany blamed Iran for the attacks.
There have also been several cases of attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and near the Strait of Hormuz which have been linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in recent months.
Zarif claimed in the article that the eight countries of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Islamic Republic of Iran “have the capacity to provide security in the region through regional discourse.”
Zarif explained that the Hormuz Peace plan includes “commitment to the goals and principles of the UN, neighborly relations, respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity, unbending international borders, resolving all the conflicts, rejecting threats and force and participation in any coalition against each other” and also “no intervention in domestic and international affairs of each other.”
Zarif added that the plan could also include “pacts of non-aggression and no-intervention, proliferation, and building trust” among the eight countries in the region.